


Chapter 1

by GizmoTrinket



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Other, POV Tony Stark, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:00:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GizmoTrinket/pseuds/GizmoTrinket
Summary: “Spare his life... and I will give you the stone.”Can be read alone. Rated T, gen.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know if anyone is like me, where they have an au idea in mind but HATE writing all the stuff that ties the fic into canon. Or, have a story idea but have no plot? If you are, behold! This is the fic that will allow you to tie any fic you want into the MCU. I will be using it and I encourage you to do so as well. Big thanks to danci, anna and tali for helping beta.
> 
> Can be read alone and just used for imagination if you'd like.

“Spare his life... and I will give you the stone.”

At that moment, on that barren planet, everything changed.

***

Tony didn’t understand. He was pretty sure he _couldn’t_ understand. 

Strange had handed over the stone.

“Why would you do that?” he asked. There was a broken edge to his voice he knew wasn’t due to the newly patched stab wound.

“We’re in the endgame now,” the sorcerer said enigmatically. 

Tony was in too much pain to ask more questions. Still, they ran through his mind. 

_Why me?_

_Was this something you saw?_

_Why me?_

_You said you’d sacrifice us on the ship._

_Why me?_

_Is there something I need to do?_

_Why me??_

Apparently, the others weren’t a part of whatever ‘The Endgame’ was because the sorcerer wasn’t paying any attention to them. Tony looked at The Guardians. They were subdued and he could see the grief plainly on Quill’s face. Tony wanted to be mad at Quill for disrupting the plan. But apparently it was doomed from the start.

Tony hated Strange a bit for that. 

He wanted to blame Quill, but how could he? He knew what it was like to learn information at the wrong moment. And it wasn’t really Quill’s fault, was it? No, the sorcerer decided to have it all happen that way.

The other guardians went up to their leader. He was quiet now, even though no one had answered him on whether or not they’d lost. The only one who could’ve was the wizard and he seemed to be waiting for something. Tony braced for the hate, the blame, the arguments.

He expected violence. 

Instead, Mantis hugged Quill, tears falling down her cheeks. Drax wrapped his arms around them both. His face was somber, but Mantis started sobbing when he touched them.

Tony had to look away.

Peter stumbled a bit as he walked up. He sat down next to Tony avoiding looking at him or the trio. There was an expression of understanding there. He was probably thinking of his parents or his uncle.

Tony felt like he should say something to comfort the kid, but nothing came to mind. _“I know what it’s like to lose family,”_ would just draw attention that Tony was sure Peter didn’t want. _“I wish I’d had that,”_ was worse in so many ways.

“Did we win?” Peter asked quietly. 

Tony barely heard him. “I don’t know,” Tony responded at the same volume. He didn’t want to intrude on the trio’s grief.

They both looked to Strange.

The sorcerer was looking between the group, his hands, and the sky. It was like he was waiting for something.

Peter looked to Tony for permission and Tony nodded at him. It’s not like the kid wouldn’t just do whatever he wanted anyway. But the wizard didn’t _currently_ seem dangerous. Tony didn’t really want to think about all the things he had done during the fight.

“Mr. Dr. Strange?” Peter asked quietly.

That seemed to settle something for the wizard because he stood and started making a portal.

Tony tried to stand up, because of course Peter was bounding around the wizard like an excited puppy. He didn’t seem at all concerned about what he’d seen those portals do. 

The kid had no sense of self-preservation.

“Stay with your… mentor,” the wizard told him with a noticeable pause.

Peter ran back to Tony. And Tony was grateful, but on the other hand, he could see Earth on the other side and he wanted Peter there where he would be safe. 

The Guardians caught sight of the portal and gathered around it. Tony couldn’t hear exactly what Dr. Strange was telling them.

“Hey,” Tony called out. He tried to stand up and nearly fell, forcing the kid to catch him.

“That’s Earth, go back with the Wizard. Don’t stay here,” Tony said to Peter.

Peter wasn’t listening, though. 

Before Tony could even get to his feet properly the portal closed. Strange and the others had left them behind.

Tony was angry that he was so useless. But mostly he was scared. He was currently a hindrance. He had no idea why Dr. Strange had left them here. Was Thanos coming back? Was that why he saved Tony? Because he was actually sacrificing them both like he’d said he would?

The anxiety and fear rose and Tony snapped. He only shouted a bit, and none of it was directed at Peter.

“It’s ok, Mr. Stark, I’m sure he’ll be back,” Peter said, trying to calm him.

“How?! How can you be sure?! He let Quill find out… No, it’s worse than that. He MADE SURE—”

“He needed to know,” a voice cut across Tony’s rant.

It was the woman, the blue one.

Tony tried to move Peter behind him, but Peter stepped out front, keeping one hand on Tony so that he couldn’t accidentally fall over. 

“What?” Tony asked as he tried to move the kid away.

“He deserved to know,” she said.

The way she held herself made Tony antsy. She reminded him a bit of Natasha.

“You could have waited, we almost had it,” Peter said.

She tilted her head as she examined Peter with her dark eyes and Tony felt his anxiety climb.

“It wouldn’t matter either way. Quill was already distracted,” she said.

“Doesn’t it bother you that he was so upset?” Tony asked. Because he had to. This situation hit too close to home.

“She was _my_ sister. But he cared for her. I would have killed him had he withheld the information from me.”

With that, Tony could see her heartbreak. The anguish she felt. Tony understood that she was grieving too. That she _had_ to share the information with someone who understood.

And she hadn’t joined the hug.

Tony wondered if the others would have shunned her if she tried.

The situation wasn’t the same after all. Steve wasn’t grieving. Or, if he was, he’d somehow thought that he couldn’t share that with Tony. Or maybe he was just afraid of Tony’s reaction. Tony liked to think that his reaction would have been more rational in a different situation, but he’d never know.

“Tell me about her,” Tony said. He tapped the kid and together they walked to a rocky outcropping that Tony could sit on comfortably. 

The woman sat not far away. She was defensive and jumpy. Peter was practically vibrating with all the questions he was holding in. Tony was too. Was she an android? A cyborg? Was she blue naturally? 

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything,” Tony said. It was clear she didn’t understand, so Tony explained. “On Earth, we hold funerals where we talk about how the other person was in life. Why they were important. It honors them.”

“We should wait. The others will want to speak.”

“Fair enough,” Tony said. The pain was getting to him and he knew they should look into getting one of the spaceships working. At this point, he was assuming Strange had stranded them.

“Is there anything you want to say that you can’t in front of them?” Peter asked, practically speaking over Tony.

“I… Yes,” she said.

All questions Tony had about her and thoughts of getting a ship working melted away as she spoke. She stared into the distance and walked around at different points. He couldn’t understand why she wanted to talk to strangers, but it did seem to be helping her.

Tony didn’t understand everything she was saying. There were obvious cultural differences and alien objects. But Tony understood that Nebula and Gamora didn’t have childhoods. They were trained to kill. And Tony suspected Nebula didn’t understand everything her stories were saying because she had been rather sheltered, in a horrifying way. Some of the things she took as universal truths weren’t and some of the things she believed were simply survival tactics. 

She was so young.

“We were supposed to kill him together! We were supposed to survive. Together. She… She promised…”

Nebula’s breath hitched.

“It’s all my fault,” she said quietly, her voice breaking.

Tony wanted to stand and go to her, but Quill beat him. Tony hadn’t seen the others come back. Peter didn’t seem surprised, but he was also trying to discreetly wipe his eyes.

Quill, Drax, Mantis, a raccoon, and a tree all came from behind Tony’s back and wrapped Nebula in a hug.

Nebula looked extremely uncomfortable until Mantis’s antennae glowed. While they did Nebula held onto the group tightly.

Tony felt his teeth grind. Well, that answered that question. The Guardians weren’t just people who sometimes fought together. They were a team. _They_ were the family that Rogers referenced in his note.

The Avengers were never this. Not to Tony.

“Woah! Is that…?” Peter trailed off.

Tony turned to look and jumped up at the sight. “What the...?”

Dr. Strange just shrugged next to the headless body of Thanos. “Thor went for his head.”

“I guess your one-in-fourteen-million plan worked,” Tony said. He kicked Thanos’s body a bit. He sort of wished it would move so he could blast it but, thankfully, there was no reaction. Tony couldn’t handle fighting right now, especially something that could fight headless.

“Not yet,” Strange said. “We still need to get rid of this.” He lifted Thanos’s arm. It still had on the golden gauntlet. 

Tony grimaced. He really hoped the wizard knew how to do that. Or had a plan of some sort. Because there weren’t any garbage disposals here.

“We should continue for Gamora,” Mantis said, her voice was quieter than the others’ but it carried.

Tony turned. He was nervous about the gauntlet and the trouble it would attract. 

“We don’t have a body,” Quill said. “We don’t have her… She’s…”

“You don’t have to,” Peter piped up. 

When everyone’s attention focused on him, he shifted awkwardly. “I mean, that’s not always, um, an option. So… Uh, it’s not a requirement.”

The Guardians argued a bit, but Nebula was the one who put her foot down. “Not around _him,”_ she indicated Thanos’s body.

The wizard seemed to take that as his cue. He explained that the stones had to exist. That they couldn’t be destroyed, or the universe would unravel. But it was too dangerous to just take them and separate them. 

“You need to use the gauntlet and tell the stones where to go,” Dr. Strange said. 

“Wouldn’t it be better if one of the people who… I don’t know... have seen more than one planet did that?” Quill asked. The sarcasm didn’t mask the anger or despair in his voice.

It was a good point.

Strange shook his head. “It has to be Tony.”

“Love the confidence there, buddy. But what am I supposed to do?” Tony didn’t even know where to begin.

Strange shrugged. “You never say, but you’re the only one who can make sure they’re never used together like this again.”

“Great,” Tony grumped. He glared at the gems.

He could hear the others talking in the background about how the Power stone had almost killed them while they were all linked together. Rightfully, they were asking how Tony would survive when he was just a human.

“Thanos feared the one named Stark,” Nebula said. She probably thought that he was more, like Quill was.

Tony remembered Thanos saying something about being cursed with knowledge. What did that even mean? Was it because of something he did here? Did he send some of them into the past? How would that even work?

All Tony knew is that if he screwed this up, he could destroy all life in the universe, forever.

“I don’t think I’m your guy,” Tony said. The anxiety was skyrocketing. “I know you saw a bunch of futures, but did you ever look into giving someone else the rocks? Someone back on Earth?”

Tony could just imagine Rogers’s reaction to this situation. And, he had a point. Every time Tony tried to take the reins things got worse. 

“It has to be you,” Strange said gently. 

Tony shook his head as he backed up. “No, see, I know people on Earth think I’m a hero but they don’t _know._ They never saw behind the scenes.” Tony laughed once, sharply. “If they actually saw what I was like, what I am—”

“Tony,” Strange interrupted softly. 

“No!” Tony stumbled a bit. “No, I’m not Neo. I’m not ‘The One.’ I’m not going to… No. Find someone else.”

“There is no one else!” Strange shouted in a burst of anger Tony hadn’t expected. The wizard pointed at Peter, “If he tries, he dies, and the universe falls apart in five years.” He points at Quill, “If he tries, Gamora comes back and the universe crumbles around her. They never even get to see each other before everything is gone!” He points at Mantis, “If she tries, the stones are gathered once more, and everything is obliterated.” He points at Drax, “If he tries then the universe ends in the past when he travels back to save his family.” He points at Nebula, “If she tries, the universe slowly unravels. Sometimes we can save it, sometimes we can’t. But it always costs far too much. Similar things happen when I gave it to people on Earth.” He points at himself, “No matter what I do, no matter where I send the stones, no matter how I transform them, no matter when I trap them… it never works. Nothing works, and the universe always is in jeopardy. Sometimes millennia before I’m born.”

Tony’s fears worsen as Strange talks. It isn’t until he speaks about himself that Tony gets an idea.

“Tell me about the stones again, Doc,” he demands. “What each is capable of and what each requires.”

The Guardians and Peter chatter in the background, Tony half listens to them and to the wizard as he thinks. 

Peter admits he would probably set up a failsafe. Try to protect someone or something. His embarrassed ramblings make Tony think that the kid probably sets a ‘don’t die’ clause on his aunt or something. She was the only family he had left, and Tony knew how much he worries that she’d be put in harm’s way because he was Spider-Man. 

Quill says that if there’s any chance he can get Gamora back he’d take it. That there had to be a way. Drax says the same about his family. Nebula says that she’d try to use the reality stone to make this reality not require the other stones and destroy the rest.

Which was a really good idea and it’s disappointing that it doesn’t work. 

“Each stone is the embodiment of a part of the universe that is required for us to exist.”

“Were there ever more? Other aspects?” Tony asks.

Strange starts rambling about ancient writings and the multiverse and Tony goes back to half tuning him out, half listening.

Tony looked the glove over. He purposefully ignored the mind stone, and what it probably meant that it was there.

Doing this will kill him. But if he does it right then everyone else would live. This must have been why Strange insisted he live. So that the stones would be gathered because Tony is the only one who can use them safely.

Who would have thought?

“I never thought shiny universe rocks would take me out,” Tony muses. 

“There’s a ‘set in stone’ joke in there somewhere,” Strange says.

Tony snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Another one bites the dust,” Tony agrees with dark humor. Because why not?

“Queen, The Game, 1980,” Strange lists the song info with a smile but he looks haunted.

Tony looks at Strange part in exasperation and part in wonder. “W-w…” Tony doesn’t know if he wants to ask what, why or just express his emotions with a quiet, _“What the fuck, man?”_ but it doesn’t really matter. 

Because now he’s singing the song in his head and if he died with an earworm there wasn’t a better one.

He has a plan now.

Tony marches up to the purple asshole who had taunted him about bleeding and rips the gauntlet from his hand. He tells the nanites to retreat and they do. The gaudy glove shrinks as Tony lowers it and when he has it on fully it fits him perfectly. The nanites have reached up to it and he can feel the power radiating up his arm. It drags across his whole body and he barely holds in a scream.

The stones examine him before the pain subsides a bit. They start to whisper to him.

_“We can bring them back.” “We can make it so that never happened.” “We can fix it.” “We can end people’s suffering.” “We can make everyone safe, just like you always wanted to.” “All you have to do is ask.”_

And, God, Tony wants to go back. He wants to catch Obie before he has a chance to sell all those weapons. He wants to save his parents. He wants the Avengers to have been a family. He wants to end world hunger, like he’d imagined when he created the IntellaCrops. He wants world peace. He wants to stop himself from making Ultron. He can feel the mind stone now.

It sounds like JARVIS.

“No,” Tony whispers. 

He sets his mind to his goal. His physical strength is waning. More of his body is on fire. He needs to gather himself. He has to survive using the stones. He has to see that they follow through with what he wants.

The power diverts. 

Tony looks to the side and sees Peter holding his left hand, the hand that isn’t wielding the gauntlet. 

He’s screaming, but Tony can’t hear him.

The power diverts again.

On his right shoulder is Quill’s hand. He’s nodding at him. Drax grabs Quill’s other hand and rainbow lights spiral around all of them.

Tony can feel Peter mentally telling him he can do it. Quill saying that they’ll all help. Drax saying he’s not alone. Mantis joins and encourages them all. The raccoon tells him to hurry it up. The tree says, “I am Groot.” _“We trust you.”_ Nebula joins them and Tony can feel how she trusts him to make sure no one can gather the stones. And Tony understands that they’ll all help. They don’t want him to die and they’re sharing the burden of power from the stones just like they had on Xandar.

The Wizard takes Peter’s hand, and everything goes still. 

Tony can see the beginning of the universe and can choose to go to the end. He can choose the end. He can bend anything and everything to his will. In this moment he is God, and anything he wills will be done.

The souls connected to him call to him. Tony could protect them. He could protect everyone. He could make it so no one anywhere ever suffered again. He could do anything he could think of. Literally anything he wants he can have. Reality is his to shape. Souls are his to collect. Minds are his to control. Time is his to map. Space is his to warp. He has the power.

Tony snaps his fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> See something that sparks an idea but you’re not sure you’re allowed?
> 
> Here is me giving you permission to use this however you want within AO3′s TOS. (In other words: don’t steal it. There's an "inspired by" section you can link on your fic. Please don't copy-paste into your fic either. If you don't want to do an inspired by please link here to read first. Thanks!)
> 
> Enjoy!


End file.
